Growth Rates and Conversions

Worldwide

Twenty years ago, the world had about 1.1 billion Muslims. Twenty years from now, it will have about twice as many - and they'll represent more than a quarter of all people on earth, according to a new [Pew] study released [January 27, 2011] Thursday.

That's a rise from less than 20 percent in 1990.. . .
The Muslim share of the global population will rise primarily because of their relatively high birth rate, the large number of Muslims of childbearing age, and an increase in life expectancy in Muslim-majority countries, according to the report, "The Future of the Global Muslim Population."

Conversion will play relatively little part in the increase, the report anticipates. It says little data is available on conversion, but what little there is suggests Islam loses as many adherents via conversion as it gains.[1][2]

January 2011

Only a tiny 3% of the world's Muslims live in "more-developed regions".

As of 2010, about three-quarters of the world’s Muslims (74.1%) live in the 49 countries in which Muslims make up a majority of the population. More than a fifth of all Muslims (23.3%) live in non-Muslim-majority countries in the developing world. About 3% of the world’s Muslims live in more-developed regions, such as Europe, North America, Australia, New Zealand and Japan.[3]

January 2011

Afghanistan

Rahman was prosecuted under anti-apostasy edicts enshrined in Afghanistan's sharia law, which makes it a crime punishable by death for any Muslim to renounce their faith. Despite the risk, however, up to 10,000 Afghans have secretly converted to Christianity in recent years, disillusioned with what they see as Islam's overzealous involvement in politics.[4]

March 2006

Africa

According to Shaykh Ahmed Katani, in Africa, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity every year: (English Translation | Arabic)

Islam used to represent, as you previously mentioned, Africa's main religion and there were 30 African languages that used to be written in Arabic script. The number of Muslims in Africa [a land of 1 billion] has diminished to 316 million, half of whom are Arabs in North Africa...In every hour, 667 Muslims convert to Christianity. Everyday, 16,000 Muslims convert to Christianity. Ever year, 6 million Muslims convert to Christianity. These numbers are very large indeed.

A 2010 Pew study confirms that Christians now outnumber the Muslim population.

In 1900, 76% of the population of sub-Saharan Africa practiced indigenous religions, while 14% were Muslim and 9% were Christian. Today, 57% of the population is Christian, while 29% are Muslim and 13% practice indigenous religions.[5][2]

April 2010

Sub-Saharan Africa and the Asia-Pacific region now have a combined population of about 800 million Christians, roughly the same as the Americas. And five of the top 10 countries with the largest Christian populations are either in Africa (Nigeria, Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia) or Asia (Philippines and China). Moreover, the fastest growth in the number of Christians over the past century has been in sub-Saharan Africa (a roughly 60-fold increase, from fewer than 9 million in 1910 to more than 516 million in 2010) and in the Asia-Pacific region (a roughly 10-fold increase, from about 28 million in 1910 to more than 285 million in 2010).[6]

December 2011

Bangladesh

In Bangladesh, Christian children from Tripuri tribes have been taken away from their villages and forcibly converted to Islam. Local Catholic sources, who asked their names be withheld, told AsiaNews that almost 300 children have been taken to madrassas (Islamic schools).

The story is the same. So-called intermediaries, who are also ethnic Tripuri, visit poverty-stricken communities where they convince families to send their children to a mission hostel, charging between 6,000 and 15,000 taka (US$ 500 to 1,200) for school and board. After pocketing the money, the intermediaries sell the children to Islamic schools elsewhere in the country.

The latest case involved 11 children, ten boys and a girl, from Thanchi, Ruma and Lama in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Their story has a happy ending though. After six months of threats and violence, the children were able to escape thanks Hotline Human Rights Trust, a Dhaka-based civil rights organisation that defends minorities run by a Catholic woman, Rosaline Costa.[7]

June 2012

Belgium

Almost half of all Antwerp schoolchildren in 2011 are Muslim, a 12% jump since 2007/8.

Half of primary schoolchildren in Antwerp are Muslim, says the city’s education supremo. Belgium’s Dutch-speaking second-largest city now has a Muslim component of over 45%; almost double the number of Catholic pupils.

In response to a request for information by the nationalist Vlaams Belang party, Education Alderman Robert Voorhamme disclosed that, of the 10,743 students in the Antwerp municipal primary schools system, just under half chose Islamic studies.

“This is 45.5 percent or an increase of just under twelve percent compared to the 2007-2008 school year”, said Voorhamme – and demonstrates the rapid Islamisation of the city.[8]

May 2011

Denmark

Priests, ecclesiastical organisations and experts all agree that the number of those who convert from Islam to Christianity has steadily increased in recent years.

“I would say that there are 100-150 Muslims in Denmark who convert each year,” says Intercultural Studies Expert Mogens Mogensen Ph. D.

Mogensen has carried out the most extensive survey ever of conversions from Islam to Christianity in Denmark. The survey concludes that almost 1,000 Muslims converted between 1980 and 2007.

“But in recent years the phenomenon has increased. Probably as a result of the fact that through education and work, Muslims have had much closer contact with Christians in Denmark and their values. We see a clear correlation between integration and the number of conversions,” Mogensen says.

The Ecclesiastical Integration Service (KIT), an umbrella organisation for 230 migrant congregations in Denmark, agrees that there is a considerable increase in the number of conversions.

“My clear feeling is that this has speeded up over the past two years. We get a lot more approaches from Muslims who want to learn more about Christianity,” says KIT Leader Henrik Lund.

One of the congregations that preaches Christianity for former Muslims is the Greater Love congregation at Vigerslev Church in Copenhagen.

“Over the past two years we have had an increasing number of Muslims who come to be embraced by Christianity than all of the previous years put together. They experience religious freedom in Denmark and for the first time many can choose the religion they want,” says Priest Nabil Astafanos.[9]

February 2011

Egypt

The number of Muslim-born converts to Christianity in Egypt, who are keeping their faith secret, has reached several million. Due to the State Security's persecution, torture and rape, they have established outside Egypt an organization called "Freed by Christ" as well as "Way TV" to speak on their behalf to the West, and expose their sufferings at the hands of State Security. It is headed by the Christian convert Dr. Mohamad Rahouna, ex-dean of the Faculty of Arabic Studies, Minya University, who fled to the United States.[10]

September 2009

Egypt is a predominantly Muslim country. Coptic Christians, represent nowadays about 5.6% of the population, according with the last population census.

To describe the evolution of the Muslim and Coptic communities in Egypt we showed the proportion of Egyptian Christians according to the population census of the 20th century (Table 1). We notice a slow decline over the period observed : Christians were 8% of the whole population at the beginning of the century (1907) and they become 5% in 1996 (Courbage and Fargues, 1997). During the second half of the 20th century, Egyptian Muslims birth rate has been constantly over 30% of the Christians birth rate (Courbage and Fargues, 1997 : 293) (Table 2).

Egyptian Demographic and Health Surveys data for the years 1988, 1992 and 1995, confirms census data. We consider first the number of children per woman according to woman age and religion, then the number of children ever born per woman according to woman age and religion. Results are show in figure 1 and 2 : birth rate of Muslim women is bigger than the one of Christian women, and the trend is constant over time.

data suggest that Christians have been steadily declining as a proportion of Egypt's population in recent decades. One reason is that Christian fertility has been lower than Muslim fertility -- that is, Christians have been having fewer babies per woman than Muslims in Egypt.. . .
Elena Ambrosetti and Nahid Kamal note in their brief paper "The relationship between religion and fertility: the case of Bangladesh and Egypt" that not only has the Egyptian Christian TFR been consistently 15% lower than the Egyptian Muslim TFR in the 1988-1995 period, but that over the 1944-1980 period crude birth rates among Muslims did not fall to the level of the crude birth rates among Christians at the beginning of this period. Thus, even though the Egyptian Christian population more than tripled from 1907 to 1996, from from 913 thousand to 3 321 thousand, the Egyptian Muslim population grew more quickly.[12]

March 2011

Congress heard disturbing accounts last week of escalating abduction, coerced conversion and forced marriage of Coptic Christian women and girls. Those women are being terrorized and, consequently, marginalized, in the formation of the new Egypt.

Sadly, the vulnerability and abduction of Coptic Christians is not a new problem. Going back to the 1970s, when Anwar Sadat used Islamism to solidify his leadership of Egypt, Coptic women and girls have been abducted, forced to marry their captors, and coercively converted to Islam. No doubt, in some cases, women chose to elope, marry across religious lines and cut off relations with their families. Yet the Egyptian government’s claim that this is what has happened to every one of thousands of disappeared women and girls defies reason.. . .

According to a new report, the second of two on this subject by George Washington University adjunct professor Michele Clark and Coptic human rights activist Nadia Ghaly... based on a survey of four lawyers in Egypt over a five-year period, they saw at least 550 cases of disappearances and petitions to restore Christian identity following abductions, forced marriages and forced conversions. Alarmingly, since the revolution, cases of reported disappearance have increased, while recovery of women and girls has decreased. Those women who escape or are found by their families face obstacles to justice and closure. In many cases, the government refuses to reinstate their Christian identity on national identity cards, which seems to sanction coerced conversions. I am not aware of any case, either before or after the revolution, in which an abductor has been prosecuted.[13]

July 2012

France

Muslims are converting to Christianity in their thousands in France but face exclusion from their families and even death threats.. . .

Muslims each year are converting to Christianity - around 10,000 to Catholicism and 5,000 to Protestantism.. . .

Many Muslims in France hide their conversion but the trend is continuing. World wide around six million Muslims a year convert to Christianity.[14]

February 2007

Germany

The Turkish-German households with an average of 3.6 people [is] much larger than German households (2.6 persons), but smaller than households in Turkey itself (approximately 4.8 People).[15]

August 2012

One in five people living in Germany now comes from an immigrant background, according to figures released on Thursday. They show that the minority community grew by more than 1.3% last year at a time when the overall population is falling.
Figures from the German Federal Statistical Office show that the number of people with immigrant backgrounds living in Germany increased by 216,000 from 2010 to 2011. Multiculturalism has been a fiercely controversial topic in Germany in recent years, engendering vigorous debate over the integration of immigrants, many of whom moved to the country in the 1960s as guest workers from Turkey. There are now 16 million people with an immigrant background living in Germany – 19.5% of the country's population.[16]

September 2012

India

In spite of this 'near total literacy' [in Kerala] the population growth rate of Muslims who constitute one-fourth of Kerala's population is as high as 2.3 per cent per year, which is more than even the national PGR [= population growth rate] of 2.11 per annum and is almost double the PGR of Hindus in Kerala itself.[17]

December 1995

The total fertility rate (TFR) [in India] is 3.4 children per woman.. . .Muslims have considerably higher fertility than any other religious group. Muslim women have a TFR of 4.4, which is 1.1 children higher than the TFR for Hindu women.[18]

1996

The poll [by the Abu Dhabi Gallup Centre] showed that Muslims had larger families, with 29 per cent having three or more children, compared with 17 per cent of Hindus and only 7 per cent in other religious groups.. . .

More than 9,500 Indians, including 1,197 Muslims, were interviewed face-to-face last year and this year for the poll.. . .
The Muslim population has increased 200 per cent in four decades, according to the 2001 census.

In comparison, the rest of the country’s population grew by 134 per cent. India has the world’s largest Muslim population after Indonesia and Pakistan.[19]

December 2011

Iran

There has also been concern over fact that many young people in Iran have abandoned Islam because they're tired of the many restrictions imposed by the faith.

According to unofficial sources, in the past five years, one million Iranians, particularly young people and women, have abandoned Islam and joined Evangelical churches.

This phenomenon has surprised even the missionaries who carry out their activities in secret in Iran.[20]

March 2008

On October 2, the government-supported news website, Javan-Online, acknowledged that the acceptance of Christianity was becoming a trend and reported 200 house churches were discovered in just a few months in the traditionally Islamic city of Mashhad.

Many high ranking government officials and Islamic religious leaders have also made statements expressing concern over the spread of Christianity. Ayatollah Jafar Sobhani, a prominent Islamic theologian and writer, publicly spoke about the conversion of 600 people to Christianity in the city of Neishabour, according to a local newspaper in the Southern Khoarasan Province. The Head of the Ministry of Intelligence in Iran, Heydar Moslehi, also warned the heads of education in Iran about the spread of Christianity in schools.[21]

December 2011

A recent survey reveals that seventy factions of Satanism are active in Iran and these Satanist groups have attracted around two thousand members in some cities in Iran.

The findings of a recent government survey show that the dangers of such groups regarding cultural and moral matters have reached a critical level. The survey also reveals that New-age Satanist groups are more active in central and south-west Iran, especially in Shiraz (924 KMs South of Tehran) and Karaj (25 KMs, North-West of Tehran) than elsewhere.

Members of such groups range in age from 16 to 24 and boys show 10 times more interest than girls in joining these Satanist groups. The survey also indicates that internet and private parties are the primary ways used to attract youth.[22]

January 2012

Israel

The Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics reported that Israeli Muslims have a natural reproduction rate that is double that of the Jewish population. The figures, which also include Muslims in East Jerusalem, show that at the beginning of 2003 there were more than one million Muslims in Israel. Almost 40% of the country’s Muslims (400,000 people) live in various communities in the north, the biggest of which is the city of Nazareth, which has 40,000 Muslim residents. Jerusalem has the largest Muslim population, with over 200,000. They make up some 30% of the city’s residents and some 20% of the country’s entire Muslim population. The number of Muslim residents in Israel at the start of 2003 stands at around 1,037,000, about 15% of Israel’s population. According to forecasts, the Muslim population will rise to 1,677,000 people, or 19% of the population, by the end of 2020. Muslims make up 82% of the entire Israeli Arab population, and they will comprise 85% of the Israeli Arab population in 2020. The Muslim population’s average natural rate of increase over the past few years is double that of the Jewish population: 3.6% compared to 1.8%. This rate of increase is one of the highest in the world, even higher than in neighboring Arab countries. Israel’s Muslim population is also young: 42% of Muslims are children under the age of 15, compared with 26% of the Jewish population. The percentage of people over 65 is less than 3% of Muslims, compared with 12% of the Jewish population.
Source: Yedioth Ahronoth, (February 13, 2003)[23]

February 2003

According to press reports, Israel’s Arab Muslim population is growing at a rate almost double the annual growth of the Jewish population.

Israel’s population is currently about 75 percent Jewish, with the remaining 25 percent most Arab Muslims (with some Arab Christians and Druze). [These percentages of course exclude the millions of Palestinians living in Gaza and West Bank]

Dr. Wahid Abd Al-Magid, editor of Al-Ahram's Arab Strategic Report, has predicted that Arabs may become a majority in Israel in 2035, and “will certainly be the majority in 2048.". . .

As it stands, the birth rate of Arab-Israeli citizens is higher than that of Jewish Israeli citizens. The Jewish population in Israel today is approximately 75 percent, down from 80 percent in the mid-1990s, according to the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics.[24]

February 2011

According to the CBS, in the passing year Israel's Jewish population grew by 1.7%, the Arab population by 2.5% and other sectors by 1.7%. The Muslim population rose by 2.7%, the Christian grew by 0.9% while the Druze population rose by 1.8%.[25]

September 2011

Kosovo

On Christmas Eve some 38 people were baptised in a single town, Klina. Conversions to Christianity have become common (though a cautious Catholic church does not give precise figures). Don Zefi says he knows of large numbers more in “tens of villages” who want to convert.. . .

For every convert, anecdotal evidence suggests more go to church or are interested in Christianity.

The Catholic church is not the only one active in Kosovo. Since 1985, says Artur Krasniqi, a Protestant pastor, as many as 15,000 Kosovar Albanians have converted to Protestantism: 2,000 regularly attend church.[26]

December 2008

Bytyqi was one of the first villagers to embrace Christianity openly after their forebears practised the faith in secret for hundreds of years while publicly proclaiming themselves to be Muslims.. . .

About 40 people from Kravaseri village, home to around 100 families, have reverted since 2008 to their ancestors' religion, shedding light on the phenomenon of crypto-Catholics.. . .
-- 'A recipe for survival' -- Under Ottoman rule many Christians converted to Islam to avoid the high taxes imposed on them while churches and monasteries were turned into mosques.

But in Kosovo, many kept the faith in secret, taking Muslim names and participating in Islamic rites but remaining Christians in their inner spiritual life, said local bishop Shan Zefi.. . .
"The more Kosovo moves towards a more European society the more apparent this phenomenon will become."

Local Church authorities estimate that hundreds of Kosovo's majority ethnic Albanians have been baptised into the Christian faith since 2008.[27]

August 2012

Kyrgyzstan

Five percent of the majority Muslim population in Kyrgyzstan have converted to Christianity due to the spreading missionary work in the former Soviet republic, a Russian newspaper reported Saturday, June 26.

The percentage of Muslims declined from 84 percent of the total population in 2001 to 79.3 percent in 2004, state-run Rossia reported quoting Omurzak Mamayusupov, the director of the religious affairs committee in the country.

In terms of figures, he added, some 100,000 Muslims, of the country’s five million population, have converted to Christianity.[28][29]

June 2004

Lebanon

Results from the adjusted parity progression ratios show that young Christian and Muslim women are significantly less likely to progress to the next parity than their older counterparts. However, fertility decline among Christians is much more significant. The onset of the decline in Muslim fertility – especially at parities three, four and five – seems to coincide with the end of the civil war in the early 1990’s, while that of Christians is at least 10 years earlier. The differences in marital fertility by religious affiliation persist after controlling for differences in socio-economic conditions, religiosity, and cultural capital.. . .

While the surveyed communities in this study are not representative of all communities in Lebanon, they point out to a very interesting pattern of large fertility differentials between Christians and Muslims in poor and deprived settings. This is in addition to the surprising finding that the total fertility rate of Christians (in these settings) is well below the replacement level.

Malaysia

Head of the Malaysian State of Perak Mufti (religious head) Dato' Seri Haji Harussani Haji Zakaria announced that there are close to 250,000 Muslim apostates in Malaysia.

This figure includes about 100,000 Malay Muslims who have declared themselves Christians.

This announcement was made on a TV Forum entitled "Pekerti Islam" in the Malaysian State of Kedah recently which was aired by RTM (Malaysian TV & Radio Department) at 2 pm this evening.

Another 100,000 Muslims are in the process of filing for apostasy while the rest are filing in to have their Muslim name changed to "other religion name"

"This figure does not include individuals who don't do solat, doesn't fast and breaks all the tenets of Islam" he said.

According to the Perak Mufti he has personally received a letter from the American Christian Missionary Association which accuse the Malaysian (?) / Perak (?) religious authorities of being cruel (or mean) for not allowing about 30,000 Malay Muslims to convert out to Christianity.[31]

February 2006

Morocco

On 27 March 2010, the Moroccan magazine TelQuel stated that thousands of Moroccans had converted to Christianity. Pointing out the absence of official data, Service de presse Common Ground, which focuses on Muslim-Western relations (n.d.), cites unspecified sources that stated that about 5,000 Moroccans became Christians between 2005 and 2010 (22 Jan. 2010)[32]

November 2011

Netherlands

Mosque attendance is dropping faster than church attendance (machine translated from the original Dutch).

One in five Dutch adults regularly visit a religious gathering. Church attendance was in recent years further back, but the mosque attendance fell hard.

In 1998 was 47 percent of Muslims once a month to the mosque in 2008 that only 35 percent. "Half is rarely, if ever," reports CBS.

The percentage of Catholics who regularly visit services, dropped from 31 to 23 percent.

Again turn Protestants, including but PKN'ers and (experimentally) Calvinists are the most faithful churchgoers. Among them was therefore hardly a drop in sight: 63 percent visit at least once a month worship. Of these, half each week.

Volunteer

Especially the PKN'ers, and to a lesser extent, the Calvinists, show a strong commitment to the community by working as volunteers. People of other denominations and unchurched less so. According to the chart that the CBS does, Muslims are the least involved in the community.

CBS calls it "remarkable" that the church membership in the large cities increased, whereas in all other areas is declining.[33]

July 2009

Norway

Norway attracted 14,300 new citizens last year and around 2,100 came from Somalia, which ranked as the largest single group of immigrants taking on Norwegian nationality. More than half of all Norway’s new citizens are women.

State statistics bureau SSB reported last week that 53 percent of Norway’s new citizens were women and a third of all new citizens were under the age of 18.

Immigrants from Afghanistan followed those from Somalia as the next-largest group of new citizens, with 1,300 officially becoming Norwegian. Persons from Iraq were third, totalling 950 new citizens.

All told, 41 percent of the new Norwegian citizens came from Asia, and 32 percent from Africa. Around 18 percent came from other European countries.[34]

May 2012

Nigeria

The fertility rate is between six and seven children per Muslim woman, versus five for non-Muslims[35]

January 2011

Pakistan

There are over 700 cases of forced conversion to Islam in Pakistan each year, according to Fides [news agency].[36]

June 2011

Around 20 to 25 forced conversions [of Hindu girls to Islam] take place every month in Sindh[37]

March, 2012

As many as 2,000 women and girls from various minority sects were forcibly converted to Islam through rape, torture and kidnappings... in 2011, according to a report by the Society for the Protection of the Rights of the Child (SPARC).[38]

September 2012

In Pakistan, in fact, in recent years there have been about 1,000 cases a year of Christian and Hindu girls kidnapped by Muslims, forced marriage and conversion.[39]

March 2013

Russia

The number of ethnic Muslims in Russia who adopted Christianity is 2 million, while the number of the Orthodox who have been converted to Islam is only 2,5 thousand, stated Roman Silantyev, executive secretary of the Inter-religious Council in Russia.. . .

as a result of what happened in Beslan, the proportion of Muslims in North Ossetia has decreased at least by 30%, while in Beslan itself, where Muslims had comprised from 30 to 40% of the population, their number has decreased at least by half.

‘As even Muslim sources confirm, after each terrorist action, thousands and may be even dozens of thousands of ethnic Muslims adopt baptism’[40]

November 2005

the number of ethnic Muslims in Russia is more or less known and estimated to be 14.5 million, Silantyev said. Yet surveys say that there are only 7 to 9 million people who adhere to the Islamic faith in Russia. . . .

'Less than 3,000 ethnic Russian have converted to Islam for the last 15 years,' Silantyev said.

According to the researcher, for the same period almost 2 million ethic Muslims have become Orthodox Christians for the same period. Over 400 Russian Orthodox clergy belong to traditionally Muslim ethnic groups, 20 percent of Tatars are Christian, and 70 percent of interfaith marriages result in the Muslim spouse conversion to Christianity.[41]

April 2007

Sweden

Muslims make up 6.05% [574,000] of Sweden’s population... In 1998 there were 284,000 Muslims in Sweden and they made up 3.21% of the total population. In other words, the number of Muslims has roughly doubled over the period 1998-2011.

During the same period, Muslim immigration and natural increase among Swedish Muslims have accounted for slightly over 41% of Sweden’s total population growth.[42]

October 2012

Turkey

Some 35,000 Turks converted from Islam to Christianity last year,with most joining evangelical congregations the newspaper, "Milliet," reports. If true, this would amount to a mass movement, considering Christians make up only 0.2 percent of Turkey's 68 million population.[43]

January 2004

United Kingdom

Mr Hussein, a 39-year-old hospital nurse in Bradford, is one of a growing number of former Muslims in Britain who face not just being shunned by family and community, but attacked, kidnapped, and in some cases killed. There is even a secret underground network to support and protect those who leave Islam. One estimate suggests that as many as 15 per cent of Muslims in Western societies have lost their faith, which would mean that in Britain there are about 200,000 apostates.[44]

February 2005

Families headed by a Muslim are more likely than other families to have children living with them. Nearly three quarters (73 per cent) had at least one dependent child in the family in 2001, compared with two fifths of Jewish (41 per cent) and Christian (40 per cent) families.

Muslim families also had the largest number of children. Over a quarter (27 per cent) of Muslim families had three or more dependent children, compared with 14 per cent of Sikh, 8 per cent of Hindu, and 7 per cent of Christian families.

The larger proportion of families with children and larger family sizes is partly a reflection of the younger age structure of the Muslim population, but may also reflect their intentions to have larger families. Many Muslims have a Pakistani or Bangladeshi background and it has been shown that these ethnic groups intend to have on average over 3 children, compared with around 2 for the White population.[45]

July 2005

Growth of Islam in the UK stems from immigration. 54% of UK Muslims are foreign born.

Nearly half of those identifying themselves as Muslim [in 2001] were born in the UK. The breakdown of place of birth at this time was: 46 percent born in the UK; 18 percent were born in Pakistan; 9 percent born in Bangladesh, 9 percent born in Africa and 3 percent born in Turkey.[46]

December 2005

Muslim extremists who try to force teenage Hindu girls to convert to Islam are being targeted in a new police crackdown.

The recruiters – often paid £5,000 for each success – are stepping up ‘aggressive conversion’ tactics, especially around universities, religious leaders believe. . . .
The problem was most common in cities such as Birmingham, Leeds and Bradford, he added, while London universities had ‘at least two or three cases’ each.

Mr Kallidai estimated hundreds of girls had been targeted, with some reports of Muslim boys being offered £5,000 ‘commissions’.[47]

February 2007

Over 100,000 people in Britain converted to Islam between 2001-2011, yet it is believed that up to 75 per cent may have since lost their faith.[48]

May 2013

United States

According to research carried out by the respected Pakistani-born American Muslim Dr. Ilyas Ba-Yunus (1932 - 2007), 75% of new Muslim converts in the US leave Islam within a few years. Listen to the clip detailing this research (listen on Youtube)

Growth of Islam in the US stems from immigration.

roughly two-thirds (65%) of adult Muslims living in the United States were born elsewhere, and 39% have come to the US since 1990.[49]

May 2007

The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life says its latest report contains “the most up-to-date and fully sourced estimates of the size and distribution of the worldwide Muslim population.”. . .
When it comes to the U.S., however, the Pew survey offers a figure significantly smaller than those favored by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other organizations. Pew says there are 2.454 million Muslims in the U.S., about 0.8 percent of the country’s total population[50].

October 2009

Yemen

Conducted upon directions of the World Health Organization (WHO) toward achieving the health-related Millennium Development Goals, the study indicated that 28 percent of married women use contraceptives or birth-control and 47 percent of women receive health care during pregnancy, but only 24 of them deliver at health centers.
The results show that the fertility rate in Yemen is 5.2 deliveries to every woman. They show that the fertility rate in rural areas is higher than that in urban areas, with 6 children per woman in rural areas and 4 children per mother in urban areas.[51]

September 2006

70 percent of the country’s population of 23-million are under the age of 25, with half under the age of 15. With an annual growth rate of 3.2 percent, the Yemeni population will double by 2030.[24]

February 2011

Prison Population

Belgium

In Belgium, Muslims from Morocco and Turkey make up at least 16 percent of the prison population, compared with 2 percent of the general populace, the [Open Society Institute] research found.[52]

April 2008

The number of non-Belgian detainees in Belgian prisons quadrupled in the period 1980-2010, going from 1,212 to 4,494, it emerges from a study carried out by Steven De Ridder and Kristel Beyens of the Vrije Universiteit van Brussel (VUB) and whose results were published in Panopticon, a journal specialised in penal law. The increase in the number of Belgian prisoners is no greater than 35%, that is 5,999 detainees in 2010 for 4,459 in 1980.

The share of foreigners has remained stable since 1995, fluctuating just above 40% (40.6% in 2009). The largest group of non-Belgian detainees consists of North Africans and Turks and has continually increased from 1993 to 2009, going from 1,254 to 1,957.

This same group represented 43.6% of non-Belgian detainees in 2009.[53]

August 2012

France

[A Muslim majority in] virtually every house of incarceration in France. About 60 to 70 percent of all inmates in the country's prison system are Muslim, according to Muslim leaders, sociologists and researchers, though Muslims make up only about 12 percent of the country's population.[52]

April 2008

As the number of French prisoners is expected to break a new record this month, Muslims account for 70 percent of inmates despite making only 5-10 percent of the population[54]

November 2011

India

NEW DELHI — Even those who caution against "illusions of grandeur and power," as the head of India's governing coalition, Sonia Gandhi, did last week, cannot hide their sense of pride at the idea of India as a nation that extends the concessions of secular democracy to its many castes, creeds and faiths.

Yet that notion has come under strain in recent days, with an official panel having concluded that Muslims, India's largest religious minority, are "lagging behind" on most things that matter. . .

Among the panel's most damning statistics, as reported by The Indian Express, are that in many states Muslims are significantly overrepresented in prison. In the western state of Maharashtra, for instance, Muslims make up 10.6 percent of the population but 32.4 percent of those convicted or facing trial.[55]

November 2006

... the number of Muslims in jail is highly disproportionate to their population. And this disturbing fact has been reconfirmed by a recent report of two scholars, Dr Vijay Raghvan and Roshni Nair of the Centre for Criminology and Justice at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS).

Commissioned by the State Minorities Commission as a follow-up to the Sachar Committee report which lamented that "in Maharashtra Muslims account for 10.6% (2001 survey) of the general population, yet they comprise 32.4 % of the prison population" (the current prison population is 36%), the report is being hotly debated among government officials. Last week, at a meeting called by minorities affairs minister Naseem Khan, officials discussed a number of measures to not just prevent Muslim youth from committing crimes but also to provide legal aid to the imprisoned and rehabilitate them post-release.[56]

June 2012

Italy

The holy fasting month of Ramadan may provide fertile ground for recruiting militants in Italy's already overcrowded prisons, according to a senior police official. Secretary-general of the Italian penitentiary police union (SAPPE), Donato Capace, said authorities were concerned that foreign prisoners may become radicalised due to the difficult conditions.

"Of the 27,000 foreign detainees, one third of them are Muslim," said Capace told Adnkronos.

"The increase in tension in the situation of Afghanistan and Iraq could (also) have repercussions.

"Due to the overcrowding in the cells and the high number of foreign detainees, with so many of them of the Islamic faith, the prison cell could become a place where petty criminals are tempted by jailed members of terror organisations," said Capace.[57]

September 2009

Netherlands

Research by the Open Society Institute, an advocacy organization, shows that in the Netherlands 20 percent of adult prisoners and 26 percent of all juvenile offenders are Muslim; the country is about 5.5 percent Muslim.[52]

April 2008

Spain

Muslims serving jail sentences in Spanish jails will now be allowed to say their prayers in congregation, provided at least ten of them expressed their wish to do so. The aim of the new ruling is to bring about equality of treatment between Muslim prisoners and Catholic interns in their religious rights.

The largest Islamic organization in the country, the Islamic Committee of Spain, has welcomed this initiative, taking into account that 70 percent of those in Spanish jails are Muslims, who number around 54,000.

Last Ramadhan a number of Spanish jails changed their meal times to conform to the Ramadhan meal times of their Muslim inmates, and provided them with prayer areas within the prisons. But in those prisoners where such arrangements were not made, there were protests.

Spain with its 40-million population, which is 94 percent Catholic, has a Muslim community of around 600,000.[58]

May 2008

United Kingdom

9 per cent is the number of Muslim prisoners in England and Wales. The number rose in 1994-2004 from 2,513 to 6,571.[59]

October 2006

In Britain, 11 percent [9,500] of prisoners are [self-described] Muslim in contrast to about 3 percent of all inhabitants, according to the Justice Ministry.[52]

April 2008

In maximum security ‘Category A’ jails such as Whitemoor in Cambridgeshire - the subject today of an exclusive report in Live magazine based on unprecedented access to both prisoners and staff - they make up 35 per cent of the inmates, and have converted numerous other prisoners to Islam.[60]

October 2008

[According to the “Statistics on Terrorism Arrests and Outcomes Great Britain”, Home Office, 26 November 2009] Almost 92 per cent of terrorist-related prisoners describe themselves as Muslim, five are Buddhist and one a Pagan.[61]

November 2009

A third of inmates at one of Britain’s most notorious youth jails are Muslims and the religion is attracting a large number of converts.

There are 229 Muslims out of a total of 686 youngsters detained at Feltham Young Offenders’ Institution in West London, according to Ministry of Justice figures.[62]

January 2012

The proportion of young Muslim men in youth jails in England and Wales rose by more than a quarter last year, figures show.

One in five males (21%) in young offender institutions (YOIs) identified themselves as Muslim in 2011/12, compared with 13% in 2009/10 and 16% in 2010/11, the annual review of children and young people in custody showed.[63]

December 2012

As at 31 March 2013, there were 121 terrorist/extremist prisoners in Great Britain, either on remand or following conviction. In total 102 prisoners were terrorism-related. . .
In terms of the self-declared religions of the 103 terrorism-related and historic prisoners, 100 defined themselves as Muslim.[64]

September 2013

There are currently around 11,200 Muslims in prison in England and Wales.
That figure is about 13% of the total prison population and is far higher than in the wider community, where Muslims make up less than 5% of the population.[65]

October 2013

The proportion of prisoners in jails in England and Wales who are Muslim has nearly doubled over the past 10 years, according to new figures from the Ministry of Justice.
In particular, the religious profile of the prison population shows there has been a steady rise in the percentage of prisoners who are Muslim, from 7.7% in 2002 to 13.4% in 2012.[66]

November 2013

United States

In New York State, it's estimated that between 17 and 20 percent of all inmates are Muslims - a number that experts say holds nationally ... It is estimated that of those who seek faith while imprisoned, about 80% come to Islam. This fact alone is a major contributor to the phenomenal growth of Islam in the U.S.[67]

October 2003

In 2003, when Muslims comprised well under 1% of the American population, it was estimated that 17-20% of the prison population was Muslim. An oft-quoted statistic states that 80% of the prisoners who "find faith" in prison convert to Islam.[68]

April, 2004

Though on the federal level they comprise about 6 percent of roughly 150,000 inmates, there are no nationwide statistics on Muslims in state prisons.
Experts believe the largest numbers in state prisons can be found in New York, where Muslims comprise roughly 18 percent of the 63,700 inmates; Pennsylvania, where the figure is about 18 percent out of 41,100; and California, where state officials don't tally religious affiliation but the figure could easily be in the thousands.[69]

July 2005

As of 2003, it was estimated that between 17-20% of all inmates are Muslim.[70]